Handlebar tape is something your hands touch every ride, and it's likely you'll notice it only when it's bad. Too thin, and you’re feeling every vibration from the road. Too thick, and your handlebar will be hard to grab, and it'll be hard to reach the brakes on the drops. Too tacky, and it peels with wear. Too smooth, and you’re hanging on for dear life when your hands get wet with rain or sweat.
In this edition of Collective Favourites, we’re talking about our favourite bar tapes – a category that many of us first said we don't have a favourite in, but yet it is a topic we have also covered in our Geek Warning podcast before. In the end, we do favour certain qualities over others, and the following is a snippet of what the Escape Collective editorial team and our members wrap their bars with, and what they dislike about bar tapes.
What makes a good bar tape?
As one of the most consumable parts of the bike, bar tape actually plays quite an important part in your setup. It needs to provide grip in all conditions, offer some padding and vibration damping, hold up over time, and look good doing it. It also needs to be easy (enough) to wrap and, potentially, rewrap.
As such, a good bar tape is a blend of ergonomics and aesthetics, but also personal preference. Some prefer thin tape that offers direct road feel; others want plush, padded wrap for long days and gravel riding. Some prioritise grip, others durability. And then there’s colour – you can have stealth or matchy-matchy with the rest of your bike, or you can opt for light-coloured tape that stands out and requires more washing.
And these days, you’ve got lots of options: matte or gloss, embossed or smooth, leather or rubber, black-on-black or fluoro fade.
Materials and bar tape evolution
Bar tape has come a long way from its cotton and shellac roots. In the early years, cotton tape was a common choice for the job, especially with a few coats of shellac to make it weatherproof. These days, it lives on mainly on classic builds to add a vintage feel, with brands like Velox and Newbaum’s still offering it in a wide range of colours. Bear in mind that this option gives you pretty much zero cushioning.
The ‘70s and ‘80s saw plastic and vinyl tapes like Benotto’s iconic Cello Tape take over. Colourful and shiny, these made a visual statement, but as one might assume, lacked comfort and grip.
Leather bar tape has also been around for a good while as a somewhat niche alternative. While it offers a texture that gets better with wear and great durability, it's expensive, tricky to maintain, and difficult to wrap neatly.
In the most recent decades, cork and EVA foam blends, particularly Cinelli’s, have taken bar tapes to another level. These materials make the tape soft, padded, and also affordable. And while these are still a solid option today, though they can be slippery when wet and wear a tad faster than full synthetics.
The most modern bar tapes use synthetic materials like polyurethane, EVA, silicone rubber, and microfiber blends. These offer not only improved grip, but also greater durability, and the ability to be textured, perforated, or embossed. Fizik’s Microtex, Silca’s Nastro offerings, and Supacaz’s polyurethane wraps are all good examples. Some of these are also reusable and glue-free, making rewrapping easier, especially with integrated cabling.
Through thick and thin
There’s no universally perfect tape, but in addition to the material, the most important consideration is the thickness of the tape. This usually ranges from 2 mm up to 3.5 mm, with some riders double-wrapping for rough terrain like cobblestones or long gravel days. In short, thin tape offers better bar feel and a smaller grip; thicker tape adds comfort and damping, but can feel too bulky for a positive grip, especially for those with smaller hands.
Are these Collective Favourites guides useful? Get access to the full guide with staff and member picks – and all our content – by becoming a member. You'll also be able to join our member-only Discord, a positive, friendly spot that's one of the best places on the social internet – like Reddit without the jerks. It's a repository of information on everything from mechanical questions to travel, powered by thousands of enthusiastic, knowledgeable cyclists like you.
There is another way of adding more comfort to bar tape: adding gel pads under it. This is common for off-road riding and allows you to add the extra cushioning to exactly where you want it, without making the whole bar bulky.
Texture matters too. Some tapes are aggressively grippy for wet or rough conditions or glove-free riding; others are smoother and sleeker. Gravel-oriented bar tapes usually have more texture to aid grip, while road tapes are slick and without any texture.
Installation: an array of choices
Once you've got the comfort and feel aspect of the bar tape figured out, you'll face the installation pickles. A bar tape with a little bit of give stretches and conforms easily to the handlebar, while stiffer tapes take much more care. But at the same time, too much stretch might lead you to have uneven layers of the tape, or even snap the tape.
This feature isn't a full "how to" in bar tape wrapping, and part of that is because there’s more than one way to wrap a handlebar, and no universal agreement on the "correct" method. Clockwise or anti-clockwise? Single loop around the levers or a figure-eight? The best way to learn a good technique here is to watch a YouTube video or find visual instructions on how to do it.
One thing is for sure: good tape makes wrapping an easy task, bad tape turns it into a frustrating chore. And let's not forget bar-end plugs – they range in designs and some are well, let's just say not suitable for the task, while some simply do their job perfectly. They also serve a safety purpose in covering sharp bar ends that could be dangerous in the case of a crash.
And to finish it all off, you'll need finishing tape. New bar tapes usually come with two strips to hold the bar tape end, but generally, a good quality electrical tape is better for the job than using these.
When to change bar tape?
Like tyres or brake pads, bar tape is consumable – even if it doesn’t always get treated that way. If your tape is torn, worn smooth and slippery, or starting to show gaps or unravel, it’s time to consider changing it. A stained tape may be a badge of honour for that big gravel ultra you did, but it can also be a signal that the material underneath the bar tape is also covered in a lot of dried-up grime. Soft spots, compressed foam, or a general loss of grip are all clues that your tape isn’t doing its job anymore.
Sweat is another factor to consider. If your hands run hot, or you ride in humid conditions and indoors on the turbo, salt and moisture can build up under the tape, not just making it smell, but also quietly corroding your bar or brake clamps. Checking for this kind of wear by regularly changing your bar tape is crucial for your safety.
There’s no hard-and-fast schedule for tape change, but for most regular riders, replacing tape at least once a year is a good rule of thumb – more often if you're riding big miles, racing, or indoor riding. It’s a small refresh that can make your whole bike feel better, and as we'll get into, with so many good options out there, it’s a good place to try something new.
Staff and member picks
Did we do a good job with this story?
